Pierre
Deladonchamps
and
his
dark-gray
backpack

French actor Pierre Deladonchamps is a traveler, moving from one role to the next and from city to city. For our fashion shoot, he takes bag and baggage to the Normandy coast.

erfect timing. Pierre Deladonchamps was packing his suitcase when he answered the phone. There’s always something weird at fi rst about not being able to see the other person. There’s an image missing. Yet I can visualize images from his movies, one after another: Stranger by the Lake by Alain Guiraudie (César for Best Male Newcomer in 2014); A Kid by Philippe Lioret (nominated in 2017, César for Best Actor for his role as Mathieu); Plaire, Aimer et Courir Vite by Christophe Honoré (2018).

A voice is heard. It is more evocative than an actual physical body. Deladonchamps claims that his voice resembles his father’s. It has likely gained resonance as a result of the various roles he’s played. The intonation, the dental consonants and the nasals. And the bass tones in particular, which make his voice terrifi c for radio: “After hearing people say this for so long, I’ve ended up liking it myself. Savoring the textures. It has evolved over the past several years. I learned to play with the fl ow, the breath. It can be light and airy, earthier as well.”

The voice carries a role, yet Deladonchamps keeps things separate: characters are one thing, but he’s not going to fall prey to some kind of schizophrenia: “You don’t take on the traits of a given character. Just the opposite, you draw on your own life experiences.” Of all the roles he’s played, it is defi nitely the one in A Kid that marked him most: “I feel I have a lot in common with Mathieu. There are things that resonate deeply with my own psyche.” He loved shooting the movie so much that when it was over, the producers gave him a gift. “It was a simple, gray backpack,” he recalls. “Dark gray. I take it everywhere and carry just about everything in it, like a woman’s handbag—my passport, a book, music, odds and ends.”

The backpack is part of his “luggage family.” There are eight pieces, ranging from a large suitcase for long shoots and carry-on bags to a shoulder bag. In addition to his clothing, they often contain wireless headphones and a small portable speaker—along with books he loves: Ágota Kristóv’s The Notebook, Joël Dicker’s The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair; Pierre Lemaitre. “I read Amélie Nothomb a lot because I like the simplicity of her writing. I met her back when I was a student in Nancy. She came there and I took an instant liking to her, she was so hard to fathom, so wacky and whimsical. During the talk I got up the nerve to ask her something when she asked the audience what we were looking for in her. I shot back—“and what are you looking for in us?”

Deladonchamps loves cars. “They give me a sense of freedom, of security. I know that wherever I go, I’ll be centered. I feel that nothing can happen to me.” He drives an Audi A3 plug-in hybrid, and sometimes takes off on long trips with his 8-year-old daughter, Léonie. The last trip was magical, to Catalonia, then Italy, after loading up on chips, soda and sparkling water. And 1960s pop music, especially Les Surfs, a group from Madagascar featuring the eldest 6 of 12 siblings (average height 1.48 m) singing Motown’s greatest hits.

Being an actor can take him far away at times, to Taiwan, and Tokyo for example, where he stayed for a month and a half shooting a Japanese blockbuster: “It was fascinating. It made me realize how happy I was to be European, proud of my country’s Latin culture, steeped in independence and critical thinking.” Deladonchamps lives in Nancy. He tried to live in Paris, but understandably found it “polluted and stressful,” appreciating it more after returning to the Lorraine region to live with his daughter: “It’s an integral part of my identity, and I really come alive here.” Deladonchamps currently is involved with the release of three fi lms: Photo de Famille, with Vanessa Paradis and Camille Cottin (French release September 5); Les Chatouilles, with Karin Viard and Clovis Cornillac (September 26); and Le Vent Tourne, with Mélanie Thierry and Nuno Lopes.

It’s time to hang up, but not without asking him what his missing image is: “My brother,” he texted me later, “who died at age 26; my father is more of a missing fi gure.” That, too, is the power of words.